why all the hype for ferrari in f1, why not the hype for mclaren.ferrari had it’s dominance at the f1 starts 60 years ago, and only when micheal shumacher had no rivals to fight with, he was driving on his own i might say.
when ayrton senna was fighting for f1 titles from 1987 to 1994 he had 5 competitive teams to deal with and 5 world champions all with great cars and still won 3 titles., that didn;t happen to shumacher from 2000 to 2004, so that was a big advantage of not having competant rivals.

No matter how rubbish they are, it won’t damage the aura and the history of the team, you look at Williams who have been wallowing at the bottom of the pile for half a decade and yet people still see them as a great team. They never had proper dominance, apart from the Schumacher era, but no matter what people say that was down to great minds all clicking together, and those great minds have just made a car that genuinely looks like a title contender for Mercedes this season.
I have always admired the Ferrari team, yes they haven’t always been at the top, but they have the history, they stick to their guns and they have a massive following throughout the world, no other team, not even McLaren, can compare to this.

I think that is a bit of a narrow view if you want to make a Schumacher-Senna comparison. If Senna was fighting for titles between 87 and 93 as you say, Schumacher was fighting between 94 and 06, when he certainly had competitive teams and multiple champions as rivals along the way. Yes, 00 to 04 showed a lot less competition generally, but so did 88 to 91 for Senna in terms of other teams, although you are right to say that at least he had a team-mate to compete with (for a couple of years anyway).

But anyway, you say why the hype for Ferrari, and then speak about 00 to 04 as though it didn’t count because Ferrari was so far ahead of other teams. It wasn’t that rivals were incompetent, so isn’t that exactly the justified reason for the hype?

@ramy I’ve read a few of your comments around the site, and you seem to be obsessed with writing Ferrari off and/or belittling their achievements. Ferrari are a great team, always will be and while they may not be good this year, next year or the year after they will win again.

Just 1 rubbish qualifying session doesn’t throw to the bin 60 years of sucess.

Every team has had its ups and downs. It wasn’t long ago that McLaren were struggling to make a competitive car (2003 with the new car that didn’t race, even if the old car was competitive, and then 2004).

Ferrari has had half a decade of utter dominance. To keep that going was always going to be difficult, but you can never write them off. They spent quite dark days in the early 90’s yet they ended up winning and winning and winning till the rest catched up.

It’s like Red Bull, really. 2 years of just dominating the pack, now it’s the first time since the Italian GP that Vettel has missed the top 3 in qualy. But that doesn’t mean they are rubbish now, does it?

I agree with what Keith said.
Ferrari is a team that’s good results are punctuated by bad results. They have a few years at the top, and then struggle in the midfield for a few. The prestige of Ferrari means that they endure years of average form before bouncing back, as they can still attract the best personnel and sponsorship.

I don´t think they´re out… the car has potential… they just need to dial it down…. although they need to come up with some serious aero packages… If not, it´s another useless season… It sucks but, history has proven that you can never count Ferrari out of a good fight. Alonso recently said something true… “F1 moves around in cycles.”
I guess it´s McLaren´s turn to win some.

@Fer no.65

It’s like Red Bull, really. 2 years of just dominating the pack, now it’s the first time since the Italian GP that Vettel has missed the top 3 in qualy. But that doesn’t mean they are rubbish now, does it?

Well, I don´t believe RBR is rubbish as a team… I just think that what has happened is that finally the blindfold was been removed from a lot of people who thought Vettel was the next Senna… I´ve said it before and I stand by what I say… The kid is an above average driver but he is far from what they tried to make people believe… It is obvious now that the rb7 was the main reason why he had such a “dominant” season. It might hurt their fanbase but the bubble had to burst sometime!
But in response, NO, RBR is not rubish… they still are very quick and have a top-notch engineers, designers, etc…
And yes, Webber can be faster when they let him! Proven today!

Ferrari’s demise is highly unlikely. I’m more disappointed with my man Kimi. Just a few bobbles right there at the end of Q1. He never even got onto the softs. Ferrari needs rid of Massa first of all. He seem ineffective.

How well do you guys think the F150 would have done in Australia if Ferrari were to put a step nose and take the blow diffuser out. surely it would have been better than the pigs ear they have now.

I think it would have been better if they would´ve just put the pull rod suspension on it but only in the rear! They should have kept the old front suspension. The F150 would´ve had a better chance than this F2012… at least the F150 had speed….

The alarms should´ve gone off long ago… Now whatever they can do, they have to do it fast or else it´s another season gone down the drain!

2011
Pole RB8 1:23,529
F150° Italia 1:24,974 +1,445
2012
Pole MP4-27 1:24.922
F2012 1:26.494 +1.572
The F2012 is not worse than the F150° Italia. The problem is this year the field is closer than last year.

Im no fan of Ferrari. Ive slagged them off a good number of times (on here & other places) with justification or not, but you dont write them off. They have slumps like most teams. Mclaren had a slump after ’76 until the early 80s and again through a lot of the 90s and are still remembered alongside the Prancing Horse as being a great team.

The season is long, the 1st race hasnt even had the green light and the word ‘demise’ is being used next too one of the great names in motorsport. Not cool and a knee jerk reaction if ever I saw one. Mark my words, Redbull will be but a long forgotten name in F1 before the boys from Maranello ever call it quits.